


God's Apprentice

by LunaDeSangre



Series: However Improbable [1]
Category: House M.D.
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, S3E15: Half Wit, Snapshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-08
Updated: 2018-09-08
Packaged: 2019-07-08 12:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15930275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaDeSangre/pseuds/LunaDeSangre
Summary: Chase has nothing to offer—nothing but himself.





	God's Apprentice

Foreman and Cameron come back empty-handed. She'd been rambling about tests, he'd been listing experimental programs. They both look at Chase, the unspoken _it's your turn, at least try something_ crystal clear.

But Chase has nothing to offer—nothing but himself.

So he hugs House, awkwardly, desperately trying to hide his desperation, feeling stupid and useless and like he's going to start sobbing any second now and might never be able to stop.

House, of course, just stands there. But he doesn't stop him—lets him have a few seconds, and even that is more than Chase's ever dared to hope for. It chokes him up even more.

"Are you crying?" House asks at last, and it's not as rough, not as dismissive as it could have been, and House is still just standing there, not pushing him away.

"No," Chase lies, letting go of him and avoiding that piercing gaze. He blinks rapidly at the floor instead—concentrates on his breathing.

House doesn't call bullshit on him, even though Chase knows he could: Chase is so grateful he almost fumbles a little making his report under House's all-seeing eyes.

(He's learnt a long time ago to settle for even the smallest crumb of non-rejection.)

*

They all work in silence. Foreman with a fatalistic kind of resignation, Cameron with a frantic sort of fire.

Outwardly, Chase stays calm. Detached. Professional.

Inwardly, he's praying.

 _Fervently_.

*

Afterwards, on the way back from House's apartment, Foreman and Cameron bitterly badmouth the very man they'd all been trying to save, angry and betrayed at this apparent slight. He hits the steering wheel at red traffic lights, and she lets her head fall against the passenger's side window with a muffled thump, groaning in resentful annoyance.

Chase stays quiet and mute in the backseat. The only thing _he_ feels is a sinking, all-encompassing horror, and he's all but numb with the thickness of it.

 _But he's in pain_ , he wants to say. _He's in constant, terrible pain! Why can't you see that?_

He can't even make a sound: his throat is all choked up at just the thought of how atrocious, how unimaginably dreadful it must be, all the time, every second of every day, for House to be that desperate.

He dodges a vague offer of drinks, goes back to his silent apartment, leaves a trail of dirty clothes on the floor, curls up on his bed in a ball, and _cries_.

(Cries like he never has for anybody in his life.)

But it's not for House's imminent death anymore: it's for House's pain.

For House _himself_.

(It's made worse by the awful fact that he's apparently the only one who deems House worthy of consideration even when he's not dying.)


End file.
